[NFBNJ] National Federation of the Blind of New Jersey: Resolution 2018-01 Regarding Protecting the Civil Rights of Blind Parents

[ems553 at comcast.net]

Greetings to all! 

On Saturday, November 3, 2018 during the 42nd State Convention of the
National Federation of the Blind of New Jersey, Live The Life You Want;
Blind With Vision, the members passed the following resolution highlighting
the need to protect the civil rights of blind parents. 

The resolution was read in Braille by Mary Jo Partyka, Chair of the Braille
Committee, to all in attendance.  Assemblywoman Yvonne Lopez was presented a
copy, she provided positive remarks and indicated her support for this
resolution. Linda Melendez, First Vice President of the NFBNJ, Joanna
Mallard, a certified foster parent and I will be meeting Assemblywoman Lopez
at her Perth Amboy office in late December. 

We will keep all posted on the results. 

In the meantime, read and share the following material provided below. 

Joe 

  

>From the desk of Joe Ruffalo, President, NFBNJ. 

Received from Ryan Stevens, Director of Legislation, NFBNJ. 

Distributed by Ellen Sullivan, Secretary, NFBNJ. 

 

Resolution is pasted and attached. 

 

Resolution 2018-01

(Regarding Protecting the Civil Rights of Blind Parents)

 

WHEREAS, protecting the rights of parents with disabilities is a notion
that, incredibly, was rejected by the United States Supreme Court in the
case of Buck v. Bell 274 U.S. 200 (1927), in which Justice Oliver Wendell
Holmes wrote, "It is better for all the world, if instead of waiting to
execute degenerate offspring for crime, or to let them starve for their
imbecility, society can prevent those who are manifestly unfit from
continuing their kind"; and

 

WHEREAS, this insulting and unjustified view that people with disabilities,
including blind people, are somehow "manifestly unfit" to be parents (or
otherwise to live the lives they want and to participate as members of
society with all rights and privileges associated therewith) has too often
continued to prevail in the courts even as we move further into the
twenty-first century; and

 

WHEREAS, this bias is reflected in matters involving adoption and
guardianship and in contested child custody proceedings, because blind
parents have been perceived by the courts, child protection agencies,
guardians ad litem, hospital staff, and others as incapable of caring
adequately for their children's needs, which has resulted in blind people
routinely being denied the right to be parents without unfair bias or
unnecessary overreach by government entities; and

 

WHEREAS, for most people a fundamental aspect of living life to the fullest
includes the joy of being a parent and sharing in the nurturing, growth, and
development of a child; and

 

WHEREAS, being a parent and raising children is a fundamental right which is
protected under the Constitution of the United States of America by the
First and Ninth Amendments and under the Fourteenth Amendment as applied to
the states; and 

 

WHEREAS, in the case of blind parents, there is a need to protect this
fundamental constitutional right; yet New Jersey has no laws at all to
protect the right of blind citizens to be parents and raise their children
without the fear of discriminatory treatment or unnecessary inquiries of
fitness solely based on blindness; and

 

WHEREAS, ten states across the country have enacted legislation that
specifically protects the rights of blind parents, and momentum toward the
goal of equal rights for blind parents is growing: now, therefore,  

 

BE IT RESOLVED by the National Federation of the Blind of New Jersey in
Convention assembled this third day of November, 2018, in the Township of
Woodbridge, New Jersey, that this organization call upon the New Jersey
Legislature to enact laws that establish procedural safeguards to protect
the right of blind people to be parents and prohibit discriminatory
presumptions of manifest unfitness solely because a parent (or prospective
parent) happens to be blind; and

 

BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED that we urge the New Jersey Attorney General, in
protecting the best interest of children in court proceedings, to use his or
her good office affirmatively to protect blind parents in the state against
discrimination and bias based solely upon blindness and to urge the courts,
guardians ad litem, and officials of child protection agencies to base
decisions about what is in the best interest of the child on the same
criteria used for sighted parents.

 

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